One of the biggest homes in U.S. history is rising on a Los Angeles hilltop, and the developer hopes to sell it for a record $500 million.
Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative residential developer, is pouring concrete in L.A.’s Bel Air neighborhood for a compound with a 74,000-square-foot (6,900-square-meter) main residence and three smaller homes, according to city records. The project, which will take at least 20 more months to complete, will exceed 100,000 square feet, including a 5,000-square-foot master bedroom, a 30-car garage and a “Monaco-style casino,” Niami said.
“The house will have almost every amenity available in the world,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The asking price will be $500 million.”
Estates with views of the Los Angeles basin are the California counterpart to Manhattan’s penthouses or London’s Mayfair […]
Isaiah J. Poole, Editor OurFuture.org - Nation of Change
Stephan: Do you ever ask yourself why America, which once had a train system that was the envy of the world, has allowed that system to deteriorate to the point we are at best a second world country? Am I exaggerating? Ask anyone who has traveled on a train anywhere in Europe, China, Korea, Japan, or Singapore how they rate their experience. It is so bad that except for the Northeastern corridor very few people even ride trains anymore. Why is this. The answer is pretty simple: Republicans don't like Amtrak or mass transport. This report makes the case.
An Amtrak train leaves the station.
Recently on a Tuesday night, an Amtrak train spectacularly derailed on its way through Philadelphia, killing at least seven people. The following morning, a House appropriations subcommittee voted to cut federal funding for Amtrak by about 20 percent. Those are two dots Republicans don’t want you to connect.
“Don’t use this tragedy in that way,” Rep. Mike Simpson is quoted in a Politico article as saying, after Democrats on the appropriations subcommittee for transportation and housing criticized Republicans for proposing and eventually approving the cuts.
The vote took place before news reports that the train may have been going around a curve at speeds of about 100 miles per hour when the derailment occurred. If those reports had surfaced earlier, the Republican objections to linking budget cuts to the derailment would likely have been much louder.
The objections would also have been equally out of line. Here are a couple of issues to consider.
First, there’s the site of the crash itself, which
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Paul McLeary, Pentagon Reporter - Foreign Policy
Stephan: Have you wondered how it is possible that we could pour over a trillion dollars into the Iraq military and government and yet they collapsed when put to the test? Here's a pretty good answer to that question. One thing has become very clear: Paul Bremner's decision to disband the Iraqi military and throw its general and senior officers into the streets must rank as one of the stupidest tactical decisions in history. I saw an old television clip the other day of Dick Cheney saying that the war would be a cakewalk, and we would be welcomed as liberators and thought to myself: why isn't this man in prison?
Iraqi generals
Shiite militias and Iraqi government forces have started to move into place around the Islamic State-held city of Ramadi in preparation for a highly-publicized but hastily-planned push to wrest the city from the fighters who chased the Iraqi army out earlier this month.
U.S. military officials believe that the militants had been carefully planning the city’s conquest for weeks, slipping fighters into the city to isolate several government buildings, then surrounding and isolating the Iraqi forces trapped in those pockets. They also battered Iraqi positions with dozens of captured Iraqi armored vehicles and bulldozers packed with explosives — 10 of which have been reported to be as large as the 1995 Oklahoma City blast. With scores dead and wounded, the exhausted and demoralized Iraqi forces were ordered to pull back to defensive positions outside of the city. U.S. officials said that dozens of armored vehicles, along with tanks and artillery pieces, were abandoned by government forces.
Furious American policymakers blasted the Iraqis for effectively abandoning the city. The Iraqi army “was not driven out of Ramadi,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs […]
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